In 85 years, a relatively minor hurricane could totally flood Washington, D.C.'s bridges, monuments and homes thanks to an enormous ice sheet under Long Island, New York. For 1.8 million years, the ice sheet has pushed the Chesapeake region upwards, but in the past 20,000 years or so, the ice sheet has been melting, according to a new study published in GSA Today. D.C. is expected to sink at least six inches into the Chesapeake Bay by 2100, which is twice as fast as the rest of the East Coast is sinking into the Atlantic. According to Vocativ, a relatively minor hurricane could create a storm tide of up to 15 feet, more than five feet above Hurricane Sandy's levels in 2012. The city won't stop sinking until the Chesapeake is back where it was before the Ice Age. In a prepared statement, Geologist and Co-author of the paper Paul Bierman described Washington, D.C. as "one of the worst spots ... in terms of this land subsidence."
· Pleistocene relative sea levels in the Chesapeake Bay region and their implications for the next century [GSA Today]
· Washington D.C. Is Sinking [Vocativ]
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